This dissertation is the result of studies concerning the prerequisites for Finnish to survive in contemporary Sweden. When the Sweden Finnish parents want instruction in Finnish for their children the only choice available in Swedish municipal schools is between two language programs: one giving instruction in Swedish classes with 1-2 hours of home language training in Finnish per week, and the other giving instruction in and of Finnish in Finnish classes. In a four part study I investigate whether Sweden Finnish pupils who take part in these programs use and have a command of both languages. The focus of the dissertation is nonetheless on Finnish and the possibilities for Sweden Finns to preserve and develop their language and culture. A total of 560 second generation Sweden Finns from Botkyrka participated in the studies and are divided by language programs into Finnish classes (273) and Swedish classes (287). The introduction of the dissertation gives a picture of the composition of the Sweden Finnish group, cultural aspirations and education possibilities. It also discusses the official position of the Swedish authorities as well as their efforts in relation to the Sweden Finnish aspirations. For comparison 411 Finland Swedish pupils from Turku as well as monolingual control groups in Finland and Sweden are also investigated. Questionnaires, tests, and essays were collected on two occasions, in 1980 and 1995. Command of reading and writing skills in Finnish and Swedish are compared among the Sweden Finnish, the Finland Swedish, and the monolingual pupils. The most bilingual were the Finland Swedish pupils. This group achieved better results on the Swedish tests than the other groups. On the Finnish tests they were better than the Sweden Finnish pupils in the Swedish classes. Compared to the Sweden Finnish pupils in Finnish classes, the Finland Swedish pupils read just as well or better but wrote less well. In the studies the Sweden Finnish pupils' language use in school and at home and the changes which had taken place during the fifteen years which had passed between the times of data collection were scrutinized. Compared to the Sweden Finnish pupils in Swedish classes in 1980 the Sweden Finnish pupils use much more Swedish today (1995) while the Sweden Finnish pupils in Finnish classes nowadays use both languages more often than those who took part in the same language program in 1980. In one study 41 former Sweden Finnish informants with an average age of 27 were re-visited. Those who had been in the Swedish classes tended to let Swedish take over at home while those who had been in the Finnish classes used both languages. Sixteen of the former informants had children of their own. The language chosen to use when speaking to their children correlated with their own language skills and the language of their partner. None of those who had been in the Swedish classes spoke Finnish with their children. Among those who were in Finnish classes various combinations of languages were applied: 40% spoke Finnish, 25% spoke both languages and 33% spoke Swedish. Nearly 90% of those who had been in Finnish classes wanted their children to learn Finnish in school while not quite 60% of those who took part in home language training wanted their children to learn Finnish in school. Judging from the results of the study, attendance in Finnish classes was of great significance for the preservation of Finnish in Sweden because only this program seemed to guarantee many-sided language skills in Finnish. The number of pupils in Finnish classes has decreased sharply since 1980, and nowadays such classes exist only in a few places in Sweden. Swedish school political practices have contributed strongly to the difficulties Finnish is having and will have surviving beyond the coming two or three generations.

This study has investigated the question of relation between literacy practices in and out of school in rural Tanzania. By using the perspective of linguistic anthropology, literacy practices in five villages in Karagwe district in the northwest of Tanzania have been analysed. The outcome may be used as a basis for educational planning and literacy programs. The analysis has revealed an intimate relation between language, literacy and power. In Karagwe, traditional élites have drawn on literacy to construct and reconstruct their authority, while new élites, such as individual women and some young people have been able to use literacy as one tool to get access to power. The study has also revealed a high level of bilingualism and a high emphasis on education in the area, which prove a potential for future education in the area. At the same time discontinuity in language use, mainly caused by stigmatisation of what is perceived as local and traditional, such as the mother-tongue of the majority of the children, and the high status accrued to all that is perceived as Western, has turned out to constitute a great obstacle for pupils’ learning. The use of ethnographic perspectives has enabled comparisons between interactional patterns in schools and outside school. This has revealed communicative patterns in school that hinder pupils’ learning, while the same patterns in other discourses reinforce learning. By using ethnography, relations between explicit and implicit language ideologies and their impact in educational contexts may be revealed. This knowledge may then be used to make educational plans and literacy programmes more relevant and efficient, not only in poor post-colonial settings such as Tanzania, but also elsewhere, such as in Western settings.

Arbetet syftar till att ge en bild av lärarnas metoder i klassrumsundervisningen av tvåspråkiga barn. Min forskningsfråga lyder: Vilka metoder använder sig läraren av för att undervisa engelsk grammatik till tvåspråkiga barn? I teori delen börjar jag med att upplysa om tvåspråkighet. Vilken uppfattning hade man om tvåspråkighet och undervisning av tvåspråkiga barn för ungefär 40 år sedan? Vilken uppfattning har forskare om tvåspråkighet och undervisningen av tvåspråkiga elever idag? Jag fortsätter med att belysa om de olika metoderna lärarna använder sig av i klassrumsundervisningen för att undervisa tvåspråkiga elever i engelsk grammatik? I resultat delen och efter att ha använt intervjun som forsknings redskap kom jag fram till följande resultat: Lärarna använde sig av liknande metoder för att motivera de tvåspråkiga eleverna till språkinlärning. De använde sig främst av leken som metod för att lära ut engelsk grammatik till deras elever. På så sätt blev grammatik undervisningen, enligt lärarna, mycket roligare och intressantare. Alla tre lärare varierade sina lektioner genom att använda sig av olika metoder. Eleverna fick ibland ansvara för sin egen språkinlärning och valde de metoder som passade bäst för deras kognitiva lärande. Lärarna använde sig också mycket av metoden 'Learner Autonomy' som gick ut på att eleverna fick arbeta självständigt och i sin egen takt med olika skrivuppgifter och övningar. Lärarna fick agera som rådgivare på dessa lektioner. I analysdelen belyste jag om Skillnader samt Likheter i lärarnas åsikter. Jag jämförde vad alla tre lärarna sa i varje fråga och om det fanns några likheter samt skillnader i deras utsagor. Jag kom som sagt fram till att lärarna använde sig av liknande metoder för att lära ut engelsk grammatik i klassrummet, men självklart så fanns det även vissa skillnader på deras sätt att jobba. Jag avslutade arbetet med en slutdiskussion där jag belyste om de olika problematiska momenten i lärarna utsagor. Samt om den bild jag fått ute på fältet i form av intervjuer, överensstämde med tidigare forskning (litteratur) som gjorts i detta område?

The purpose of this study has been to examine reading habits and the use of the library by pre­school teachers in a mainly multicultural community, and also explore to what extent activities in the local library are aimed at preschoolers. The study used a sociocultural approach based on Vygotsky’s theories of learning and development and Söderbergh’s theory of early childhood language development, and was carried out during the summer 2009. The methodology used was both quantitative and qualitative, with a combination of questionnaires and interviews. Questionnaires were sent out to each section of the municipal pre­schools within the catchments area of the local public library in a multicultural suburb of Uppsala. Three short interviews were carried out with staff at the local and main library branches, as well as library staff at the County Council. The results show that, although preschool teachers find reading important in their work, many teachers read spontaneously and/or sporadically. Many also find that visiting the library is difficult, seeing distance and the age of the children as factors preventing them from going. The library studied has little or no mutual activities with the preschools. General activities aimed at young children are story time in Swedish and several other languages as well as theatre and music events, book talks aimed towards parents visiting early year’s centres and, for preschools since 2008, theme bags involving popular topics such as nature, friends, and seasons. Conflicts exist between the control documents for the libraries and the present law of education in Sweden.

This study aims to examine memory performance in monolingual and bilingual children, and whether novel information (compared to familiar information) is differently recognized by bilingual children compared to monolingual children, and for boys compared to girls. A sample of 49 pupils from Swedish schools (28 bilingual children and 21 monolingual children; and 24 girls and 25 boys) was used in this study. Both bilinguals and monolingual had to remember or make decisions about different lists of words. They also performed two tasks of semantic memory. After that, they had to rate themselves in their proficiency of Swedish knowledge (writing, reading, speaking and understanding) and knowledge in mother tongue (only for bilinguals). In all memory tasks, no differences were found between bilingual and monolingual groups. Also, novel information was recognized similarly to familiar information and none of the groups was different in this regard. / Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka minnesprestationer hos enspråkiga- och tvåspråkiga barn och om ny information känns igen på ett annat sätt än bekant information hos enspråkiga jämfört med tvåspråkiga barn samt hos killar jämfört med tjejer. Ett stickprov på 49 elever från svenska skolor (28 tvåspråkiga och 21 enspråkiga, 24 tjejer och 25 killar) användes i studien. Både enspråkiga- och tvåspråkiga fick i uppgift att komma ihåg och besluta om olika ordlistor. De fick också två test om semantiskt minne. Efteråt fick de bedöma sin förmåga i svenska språket (skriva, läsa, tala och förstå) och tvåspråkiga bedömde även sin förmåga i hemspråket. Inga skillnader fanns mellan grupperna avseende resultaten av minnsestesterna. Vidare upptäcktes inga skillnader i att komma ihåg ny och bekant information hos någon av grupperna.

Denna studie grundas i ett intresse för hur pedagoger inom förskolan arbetar med barn med annan kulturell bakgrund än infödda svenskar. Detta för att få en god utveckling av det svenska språket, hos de barn som behöver extra stöd. Det ges även en inblick av hur förskollärare uppfattar föräldrarnas delaktighet i barnens språkliga utveckling, då det är ett faktum att föräldrarnas engagemang ses mycket betydande i hur positivt barn uppfattar sin kultur, sitt modersmål och sitt identitetsskapande. Vidare utgår det pedagogiska perspektivet från Vygotskij's utvecklingsteori tillsammans med de tankar som Maria Montessori hade kring barns utveckling och den förskole – samt skolverksamhet hon bedrev. Huvudfrågan som ställs är hur pedagoger hjälper barnen till det svenska språket samt hur de ser på samarbetet med föräldrarna, hemifrån. Undersökningen är baserad på kvalitativa intervjuer med fyra utbildade förskollärare, som arbetar på mångkulturella förskolor inom Gävle kommun. Övergripande slutsats som kan tas utifrån denna studie är att alla de tillfrågade förskolärarna anser att de mycket aktivt arbetar med barns svenskspråkliga utveckling, då det gäller barn med annan etnisk tillhörighet än den svenska, som uppvisar svårigheter inom detta. Detta synliggörs bland annat igenom bokläsning, nyttjandet av rim och ramsor, intresseväckande nyanserade samtal med barnen samt den fria leken i relation till socialt samspel. Förskollärarna bekräftar att en god svenskspråklig framgång gynnas av redan goda språkkunskaper i det besittande modersmålet, något som de uttrycker att de uppmuntrar både barnen och dess föräldrar att hålla kvar vid. De berättar om den idag avsaknade modersmålsundervisningens positiva respektive negativa aspekter samt hur de tycker att barnen gynnats av modersmålslärarnas arbete. Bland annat tycker förskollärarna att modersmålslärarens skulle ha haft en roll som tolk i den dagliga verksamheten, då de menar att barnen i stort sätt lär sig sitt modersmål i hemmet. Detta kan vidare synliggöras som ett omedvetet samarbete mellan pedagoger och föräldrar. Förskollärarna konstaterar dock att de inte ser ett så stort medvetet sammarbete med föräldrarna hemifrån, i ett syfte att främja barnens språkliga utveckling, som komplement till den dagliga verksamheten på förskolan, som de kanske skulle vilja. Förskollärarna uppfattar i viss mån att föräldrarna läser böcker för sina barn i hemmet, men har ingen egentlig uppfattning huruvida de sjunger tillsammans med sina barn. Dock påvisar förskollärarna att de ideligen uppmuntrar föräldrarna till detta. Resultatet av denna studie fastställer pedagogernas engagemang i barnens utvecklande av det svenska språket, såväl som modersmålet. / This study is based on an interest in how teachers within pre-schools work with children of other ethnical nationalities than Swedish. This to obtain a good development for the Swedish language, for the children how requires extra help. There is also given an insight on how the preschool-teachers perceive the parent’s participation in the children’s language development, for it is a reality that parents involvement sees very significant in how positive the children look upon their culture, their native language and their sense of forming an identity. Furthermore, the pedagogical perspective lapse from Vygotskij’s theory of development alongside with the thoughts of Maria Montessori about children’s early development and the work she constructed and led within pre-schools and schools. The main question asked is how the pre-school teachers help the children with their development of the Swedish language, and also how the view the collaboration with the parents, out of the homes. The analysis is based on qualitative interviews with four qualified pre-school teachers, who work in multicultural preschools within the county of Gävle. The overall conclusion which can be withdrawn from this study is that all of the asked pre-school teachers believe that they are very actively working with the children when it comes to learning the Swedish language, regarding those children who prove to have difficulty within this area. This is made visible, amongst other things, trough book reading, the different uses of rhymes, interest-awakening and nuanced conversations with the children and also independent playtime related to social interaction. The pre-school teachers confirm that good achievements in the Swedish language benefits by an already good language-knowledge for the native language, something they express that they encourage both the children as well as their parents to hold on to. They talk about the today absent home language instructions positive and negative aspects, and also their views on whether the children had benefit from the work of the home language teachers. Amongst other things, the pre-school teachers feel that the home language teacher should have had more of a translator’s role in the daily activities, since their believes are that the children pretty much learn their whole native language out of the homes. This can furthermore be made seen as an unconsciously collaboration between the preschool teachers and parents. The pre-school teachers however mean that they do not see much of a deliberate collaboration with the parents within the home, to serve as a purpose to help the child in its language development, as a complement to the daily activities in the pre-school, as much as they would like. The pre-school teachers apprehend to some extent that the parents read books with their children within the home, but have no real perception on whether they sing together with their children. However, he pre-school teachers highlight how they time and time again encourage the parents to do so. The result of this study states the pre-school teachers’ dedication in the children’s development of the Swedish language, as well as their native language.

This study used an experimental script awareness task to measure the script recognition and metacognitions of 129 English language learners (ELLs) in Senior Kindergarten from Chinese, Portuguese, or Spanish L1 backgrounds. Items formed two clusters: those involving the Latin alphabet and those involving symbolic script. Based on ability to name letters and read some words, children were divided into “readers” and “prereaders.” There were significant effects of home language and reading group: the Chinese ELLs were better at distinguishing items of symbolic script from the Latin alphabet items, but the Portuguese and Spanish ELLs were better at explaining their metacognitions. When the item was more similar to English, readers were more likely to accept it as English. Differences in script awareness development are discussed in relation to home language, reading ability, nonverbal ability, and vocabulary skills.

This study used an experimental script awareness task to measure the script recognition and metacognitions of 129 English language learners (ELLs) in Senior Kindergarten from Chinese, Portuguese, or Spanish L1 backgrounds. Items formed two clusters: those involving the Latin alphabet and those involving symbolic script. Based on ability to name letters and read some words, children were divided into “readers” and “prereaders.” There were significant effects of home language and reading group: the Chinese ELLs were better at distinguishing items of symbolic script from the Latin alphabet items, but the Portuguese and Spanish ELLs were better at explaining their metacognitions. When the item was more similar to English, readers were more likely to accept it as English. Differences in script awareness development are discussed in relation to home language, reading ability, nonverbal ability, and vocabulary skills.

This report is a summary and a discussion of a research project on bilingualism in Tornedalen. Within the project "Education in sparsely populated areas", financed by the National Board of Education, a number of studies were carried out aiming at giving a description of the present linguistic situation (Swedish/Finnish) of the pupils in the comprehensive school. Another aim was to see if there was any correlation between school achievement and the linguistic abilities of the pupils (Swedish-Finnish) . In this connection the intention was also to develop methods of measurement and to construct tests. The basis of the work was a model originally developed by Spolsky (1974) and had in a broad sense a "sociology of language" approach. The population consisted of all the 354 pupils in grade 4 in the district of Haparanda, Övertorneå and Paj ala. The gathering of data in which combination of different methods such as interviews, observations and testings were used, took place at the turn of the year 1975/76. The results have been published in six reports (nr 78-83) in the series of reports of the Department of Education, Pedagogiska rapporter, Umeå (in Swedish). In this summary the main results are accounted for concerning the pupil's use of language and linguistic knowledge as well as results and marks. The results show that the use of the Finnish language is almost restricted to the home environment. As for the knowledge of Finnish it can be noted that about 40 per cent have active abilities and the rest of the pupils are purely Swedish speaking. The difference between the mentioned groups as regards the other measurements of achievement used were small or insignificant especially if the social background of the pupils was taken into consideration. The main conclusion was that the Finnish language in Tornedalen is decreasing and that in one or two generations probably all the area will be Swedish speaking. The consequences of this are discussed,and the importance of school and education is also dealt with. Suggestions for further research are given such as longitudinal and iterated cross-sectional studies and comparative studies in other bilingual areas. Studies about attitudes to the languages in Tornedalen are suggested as well as intensified work on the developing of methods in bilingual research. Finnally further investigations on the covariation between different factors and school achievement are recommended. / digitalisering@umu

El enfoque de esta tesis es un proyecto de servicio-aprendizaje en una clase bilingüe de kinder en el área metropolitana de Los Ángeles. Los estudiantes recibieron un temario de educación ambiental por dos horas a la semana durante la primavera de 2008. Un estudio de la educación ambiental y la educación bilingüe da un contexto social y historico a este trabajo práctico. Describe las lecciones y su significado dentro del contexto. Hay recommendaciones a seguir para proyectos similares en el sitio de estudio.